Reams touched the tip of his forefinger to the center of his brow and raised it in the sign of the One Truth. “God uplift his soul,” he muttered. His men followed suit obediently.
The garroter stepped away from Rohn’s body and toward Wen and Anden. “Do we have to kill the peach, Boss?” Sunter asked, looking at Wen. “She’s pretty; couldn’t we just—”
Reams gave his coat a sternly disappointed look and Sunter stopped talking. Anden’s vision was blurred and he thought his heart might pound itself to death before the crewboys killed him. When Wen turned her head to catch his eyes, he tried to speak but the gag was still in his mouth and he could only look at her in mute panic. He thought she made an attempt to smile at him, as if in solidarity, telling him to be brave, that at least they were facing this together.
Wen turned to Reams and tilted her chin to stare up into his face. “Do you know who I am?” she asked in accented Espenian. Her hands were clasped together tightly and it was clear she was frightened, but her voice was shockingly calm. “Do you know the name Kaul? Or the name Maik?”
Reams looked down at her with dispassion. “Sorry, peach. Who you are doesn’t matter to me. If you’re important among your own people, then so much the better for my purposes.”
Wen spat at Reams’s feet. She straightened and spoke in Kekonese. “The clan is my blood, and the Pillar is its master.” The man with the garrote stepped behind Wen and slipped the plastic bag over her head. He looped the cord around her neck and began to tighten it. Wen did not struggle. She had seen Rohn Toro—a man, much larger and stronger than her—beaten into submission and murdered before her eyes and saw no point in repeating the indignity. Wen’s face remained turned slightly upward, and she kept reciting the single line, over and over again, until she had no access to air and only her mouth was moving. The clan is my blood, and the Pillar…
Wen’s legs kicked, stiffened, went limp.
Anden was screaming endlessly around the gag in his mouth; his mind was filled with nothing but the sound of his own screaming and when the bag went over his head and the cord around his neck, he couldn’t muster any of the composure Wen had displayed. He was sobbing with impotent, burning, grief-stricken rage, cursing their killers with every ounce of vitriol in his being. He couldn’t believe he was going to die in such a low way at the hands of such scum, helpless, here of all places—on the floor of a garage in fucking Espenia. His vision went red, then white.
Shae took out her address book, picked up the phone, and told the operator that she needed to place a long-distance call to Port Massy. The number that Anden had given her for his apartment rang without response. She had been advised not to use the number for the Dauks’ residence, as it was possible that the Espenian authorities might still be monitoring it, but she called it anyway; there was no answer there either. Her final attempt was the Weather Man’s branch office, just in case for some reason Anden had gone there, but as expected, it was closed for the evening. Shae depressed the receiver cradle, then released it and called her own office to tell her secretary that she would not be coming into work this morning and to cancel her appointments.
She thought about the small prayer room in the main house, but she didn’t dare to leave earshot of her phone. She placed three sticks of incense in a cup, set it by her window, and knelt. Thin tendrils of fragrant sandalwood smoke rose and mingled against the glass. Shae touched her forehead to the ground three times and whispered, “Yatto, Father of All. Jenshu, Old Uncle. Gods in Heaven, please hear me. My cousin, Emery Anden, was adopted into our family and raised as my youngest brother. He could’ve been a powerful Green Bone but he refuses to wear jade because he didn’t want a life of killing and madness. My sister-in-law, Kaul Maik Wen, is a stone-eye but she’s never let that stop her; she’s risked her life and her marriage for the clan, and she’s the mother of three small children who need her. Anden and Wen are green in the soul, and now they’re in danger in Espenia because I put them both there. Please protect them and bring them home safely.”
The silence that followed her words was so absolute that her growing panic spiked into anger. “Why are you always so cruel?” she demanded in a harsh whisper. “Every week, I come to you on my knees. If you even exist, then help us. We’re not a family that can claim to adhere to the Divine Virtues all the time, but who can? Who in our position could stand a chance? Please, I’m begging you, don’t punish Wen and Anden for anything my brother or I have done in the past.” Shae felt her hands trembling against her thighs. “On my honor, my life, and my jade—I’m begging you.”
Anden didn’t hear the noises at first. When he did, he didn’t identify them as the crunch of tires and the slamming of car doors. The one thing he heard was Carson Sunter exclaim, “Shit, they’re here.” He heard that part clearly—and then Reams’s sharp order: “Out the front.”
The circle of pressure around Anden’s neck abruptly slackened and he was dropped to the ground on his stomach, the pain in his throat and chest so bad it felt like fire inside his lungs.
A great deal more noise erupted—gunshots and shouting, running feet, more gunshots reverberating in the enclosed space—he had no idea where they were coming from or how many there were, and then crashing sounds farther away in the front of the store. He couldn’t see anything except shadow and movement through the film of white plastic over his face, which was still suffocating him. He was fading out, his consciousness sliding away like hot oil.
Hands seized him and rolled him over roughly; the plastic was torn off his face. Air flooded into Anden’s nose and mouth and he gasped violently, blinking and heaving for breath. Shun Todorho knelt over him, his face ashen and horrified. He had a gun in his hand, but he set it down and worked at removing Anden’s gag. Anden coughed and spat, the corners of his mouth raw and stinging. Someone else—Sammy—cut the bindings around Anden’s wrists, and they sat him up, steadying him. Three other Green Bones that Anden recognized from the grudge hall were crowded into the garage. “The phone call was cut off—we thought we were too late,” Tod said.
“We were,” Sammy said, turning to where Dauk Losun knelt beside Rohn Toro’s body. The Pillar of Southtrap rocked back on his heels, tears running freely down his rough face.
Anden shot to his feet, swayed, and stumbled to where Wen lay motionless on the concrete. He tore the bag off her face and pressed his ear to her chest, praying he would hear a heartbeat. He had learned basic first aid at some point in his life, and he struggled to remember what to do if a person was not breathing. He tilted Wen’s head back and opened her mouth, sealing it with his own, and breathed out in two hard puffs. He began doing chest compressions. How much time had passed? It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes… perhaps… He breathed into her mouth again. “Please,” he begged all the gods, “please.”
Wen remained limp.
Sammy crouched down beside Anden and put a hand on his shoulder. “She’s gone, crumb,” he said. Anden stopped in midmotion. In desperate epiphany, he whirled, his eyes wild, and scrambled to the duffel bag still lying open on the floor, out of reach the whole time that Rohn Toro had needed it most. Anden grabbed Rohn’s black gloves and hurried back to Wen; before anyone could even ask him what he was doing, he shoved his hands into the jade-studded lining.